Local small business has one major issue unknown to international conglomerates: a service area. Another differentiators is the brick and mortar store front. Most of us local business owners must talk directly to prospects before converting them into customers. Often, we expect them to come in the front door and lie on our adjustment table or eat dinner over our many tablecloths. Few of us have shopping carts and sell info-products.

Is Local Marketing Right For You?

The Internet has changed the way that the world does business. It really has changed everything. People no longer stop what they are doing to reach for the Yellow Pages when they need a service or product. They reach for their computer and this has changed everything.

Has Local Small Business Slowed?

Where once you might have succeeded advertising your local business in the local newspaper, now you need to get your business online with local small business marketing My business targets my local community — most of my customers come from a five mile radius. Year on year it’s been getting harder and harder to hit my sales targets. It seems like each year there are fewer good customers out there. Can you relate to my story?

The reason for my struggles is likely the same as your struggles — I was not making the most of marketing my local business online. It’s less about traditional offline media and all about the Internet now. How has the Internet has transformed local small business marketing? That is where eager buyers are looking for my products and services.

Local Small Business Marketing Is On The Internet

Since I started taking seriously what the Internet offers in terms of local business marketing, my sales have literally shot through the roof. Where once I was struggling to make ends meet, now I’m struggling to cope with the avalanche of work I have coming in every single day – I need to add staff soon. There is no doubt in my mind that the Internet and its facility to put my local business directly in front of eager buyers has changed my local small business for the better forever!

Marketing To Local Buyers Grows Small Business

I was taken completely by surprise that my business keeps growing, even throughout these current economic challenges. Not even this global recession has stopped my business from growing. My success is undoubtedly our change from traditional marketing methods to local small business marketing online.

Local Business Profits From Eager Local Buyers

I know that it might seem counter intuitive to use the Internet to connect with customers who are perhaps just a few miles from your door; but, look at the facts: The Internet is everywhere — in our phones, in our iPads and iPods, in our computers and in our cars and TV’s. More than 80% of Americans use the Internet regularly and more than 1 billion people each month search to buy locally.

Get Onboard Local Small Business Marketing

This Internet thing has changed the game of business by moving the goal posts closer for local small business. If you have a local business and you want to grow profitably in 2011 and beyond, wake up to these changes and get onboard. Local business marketing is what you need to do right now.

Once you start local small business marketing you, too, will witness profound changes. You, like me, may realize that your true business is collecting testimonials; and pulling teeth and shingling roofs are simply means to that end. Profitable local small business marketing is simpler than you think.

Most small business owners fail when it comes to their small business marketing plans. They’ve got excellent technical skills in their line of work, but that just doesn’t translate to having effective marketing skills.

As a result, profitability of many small businesses has been declining over the years. Ever increasing competition is making it more challenging in many ways. For those businesses that aren’t losing money, most are not producing the profit they could be if they knew how to market themselves properly.

These business owners usually just copy what they see other businesses doing, or they follow the advice of some media sales person. The problem is they copy the wrong types of businesses, and the media sales people typically only know as much about effective marketing as the business owner does.

Without the right kind of marketing system in place, the success of any business is by pure chance. To help remedy this situation, below are seven things a small business can do to increase profits while spending less on marketing.

1. Use the power of free stuff

Everyone likes getting free stuff and you can use that to your advantage. If your business lends itself to giving away free samples of your product, do that. It helps get people hooked on it. Business profits have boomed on this marketing model.

As Chris Anderson author of the book titled, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” says, “You can make make money giving things away.” In his book he talks about how businesses are giving away products and services they used to charge for, and in return, a percentage of their customers are buying something else. As a result, they are making more money than ever.

When you give something away, you often activate a universal law called the “Law of Reciprocity.” It says that when people get something free, they feel obligated to do something for you. Obviously it doesn’t work every time, but it does work enough of the time.

But there is another way to give away free stuff that can greatly benefit your business. When you do it right you get something very valuable in return: customer contact info…which leads us to the next tip.

2. Start capturing customer contact info and use it

One of the biggest mistakes small business owners make is not tapping their current customer base. They let customers visit their business (online or offline) all day long without ever trying to capture their contact info so they can continue to market products or services to them.

You likely know how expensive it can be to get a new customer. But you can market to your current customers for little or no cost. Capturing and using customer contact info can mean the difference between a profitable business and one that barely gets by.

Your business has more customer value in it than a customer can possibly digest in a short visit so if you aren’t continually marketing to your customers, you are throwing money away!

You can make customer contact capture easier simply by using the power of free from tip number one. Simply start a monthly drawing to give away something free and print some registration slips visitors can fill out. Also have people register online on your website.

Tell customers they only have to register once for all drawings and you will contact them monthly via email to let them know who won. Of course you will always include an offer for a product or service!

What do you give away? Anything with a perceived value makes a great free item. Free items do not have to be expensive. Buy something on sale at WalMart or at eBay and offer it. You can also offer free informational reports that help people solve their problems. People are always looking for ways to solve problems they are having.

Of course, once you capture this information you have to do something with it. If you’re too busy to take on any more work, then the next tip will help you out.

3. Use automated tools to keep in touch with customers

Once you have a customer list, I recommend you send a minimum of 25 “messages” a year to it. A message could be an email, direct mail piece, fax, or phone call.

If you don’t use an automated tool to do the work for you, you’ll likely be too busy to get the job done. When you automate, your messages go out regardless of how busy you get (the more messages that go out, the busier you’ll get).

One tool you can use is an email autoresponder, which is a web-based system that sends out emails when someone signs up. It sends out emails at intervals you set up. You can also set it up to send an email on a specific day, such as a holiday.

The great thing about an autoresponder tool is that you enter your messages in the autoresponder one time, then it automatically sends emails to your list. You can also broadcast messages any time you want.

Using this tool, keeping in touch with your customers is easy and it will help keep the competition from creeping in and stealing your customers because they’ve forgotten about you and the services you provide.

4. Stop marketing like you’re a big business.

Marketing a small business like it’s a big business is something almost every small business owner does. They just copy the marketing they see being done at large companies with big brands. This kind of marketing is called “brand identity,” “brand building,” or “image” marketing.

This is a HUGE waste of advertising money for a small business. You simply don’t have the resources you need to support a successful branding campaign.

Brand advertising typically has no “call to action,” (they don’t ask you to do anything). They just give you features of the product or service, or they entertain you without asking you to do anything.

Brand advertising is usually benefit free. The viewer has to determine if there is a benefit to them. It may contain a list of features and the user will have to assign their own benefit to each feature. It is usually focused on the product or provider of the product instead if the customer.

A successful marketing campaign for a small business is created around direct response marketing techniques.

5. Use old fashioned direct response techniques in new ways

The kind of marketing plan that works for a small business is direct response marketing. It doesn’t require a huge marketing budget to use effectively. It can be used for all types of products and services.

And the good news is that you don’t even have to hire an advertising agency to do it since it doesn’t require creativity. All you have to do is learn the basic structure of direct response marketing and you can easily increase the sales your business makes.

Direct response sales copy always asks the reader or viewer to take some sort of action i.e. “Call in the next 5 minutes, and we’ll include a free set of Ginzu steak knives!”.

It may ask for the sale directly if a full “sales presentation” was done (one-step advertising), or it may ask them to request more information (two-step advertising). It will at a minimum, ask the reader to take some form of “traceable” action so you know if it is working or not.

There should always be a headline for written advertisements! Never put your company logo at the top of a direct response advertisement. That’s brand advertising.

Whenever you create an advertisement in any form always look at them from the customer point of view. Look it and ask “Who gives a crap?” about everything in it. Do you think the customer cares about your logo. No! They care about what you can do for them. Put in benefits and not features. Let the customer know what’s in it for them. A successful direct response ad for a small business includes several things:

An offer to buy something

Sufficient information for the consumer to make a decision to act now (or directions on how to get more info)

An explicit “call to action” sooner rather than later

A clear way to respond such as a telephone number or web page

A means of tracking the response.

Direct response advertising is not just used for mail campaigns. You use it in all forms of media: print, web, mail, and broadcast. Take a look at all the advertising you are currently doing no matter where it is and start making the change now.

6. Use the Internet to advertise for free

Even though websites as we know them have existed since around the early 90s, only 49%* of small businesses currently have a website *9/08, Barlow Research. It’s surprising how many businesses do not understand how powerful this marketing tool is. If you don’t have a website, get one because there is no better source of free advertising!

The Internet has hundreds of “Web 2.0” websites where you post “content” for free. The content can be text, videos, or audios you create and it can lead people to your business. Plus, it helps establish you as an expert in your field.

EzineArticles.com is one such place you can post content. There was no charge to post this article. All I had to do is write it, post it, and then you found it.

You can put links in the “author resource” section, to drive traffic to a page on your website. The articles you post in EzineArticles can rank extremely well in Google search results with a little help from you.

You also want to get your business listed in places like Google Local if you do local business. Once again this is absolutely free.

Once you learn how to do use the Internet for promotion you’ll have a head start on the future of advertising and you get customers for free!

7. Outsource routine marketing tasks so you can work on the growing your business

One of the biggest problems small business owners have is that they get so consumed by working IN their business, they don’t have time to work ON their business. So no growth can occur.

When it comes to marketing yourself on the Internet, there are ways to use “virtual assistants” to do most of the work for you. A virtual assistant is someone you hire on a full or part-time basis who does the work for you.

But a virtual assistant is not a direct employee so you don’t provide benefits or have the normal hassles of an employee. They are usually located somewhere in the world that has low-cost wages so they are very affordable. That’s the beauty of the Internet and the communication it provides.

There are lots of resources on the Internet that can help you find a virtual assistant.

Create Your Small Business Marketing Plan Now!

Use these seven marketing tips to start building your small business marketing plan right now. If you procrastinate, your busy life will get in the way of business growth. Even if you only take a little of the advice you’ve been given, you’ll find it can have a big impact on the profitability of your business.

A good small business marketing strategy creates a method of efficiently communicating to current customers and prospect customers to prefer your business over other businesses coming from the same industry you belong.

Your local venture’s success depends greatly on how you are going to market it. This is usually done with a bunch of advertising efforts which are primarily done online. You can either get help from marketing experts or do the promotion by yourself.

Here are some important marketing ideas that every marketing strategy should have.

Target Market

Select your target market. Right from the start; make it clear to whom you are going to offer your products and services. This can help you develop more effective advertising campaigns.

Market Research

Once you have identified the object of your small business marketing strategy, research about the behavior, desires, interests and needs of your marked audience. Discover what they are looking for in your type of business and then use this information to develop an advertising campaign that will attract them.

Know your market environment. Marketing a product or service that nobody wants is a sure way to small business failure. Most entrepreneurs assume that their customers will like the things that they personally like and decide to sell. This practice definitely limits a business’ ability to produce profit, thus, business fails. So, support your assumptions with market research.

Competition Analysis

Analyze the status of your competitors. Know the strategies they use to promote their products and services. Study their strong and weak points. You can use your findings in advertising your small business.

Distinctive Business Spin

Discover how your business is going stand out in your niche. Offer what your competitors can’t. Perhaps, it is better quality or faster services at lower prices. Be careful though, in marking down your prices just to attract customers. Customers may not always be looking for lower prices. They may be willing to pay higher fees for the best product or services.

Communication

How then are you going to make yourself reachable by your prospect market? Big, medium and small businesses go for online marketing when it comes to promoting their ventures. In connection to that, what has worked big time for small businesses in the recent years is local search engine marketing.

It is similar to the typical search engine marketing, the only difference is the size of the business it promotes and the specific market it directs. Herewith, website owners compete for top rankings in the search engine results to ensure getting the first views from potential customers. This is important as these views can convert to actual sales.

Consistency

The moment you go for online marketing, use a consistent statement or brand with which you are going to use in promoting your products and services to your market. This helps your customers remember you and return for more of what you have in store for them. Although, you will just be targeting a local market include branding in your small business marketing strategy as this makes you distinguishable amidst a pool of competitors.